Michigan Center on the Demography of Aging--Visualizing Age Standardized Death Rates Supplement

Rising life expectancy has been a major achievement in past decades, but gains in the U.S. have not been shared equally by men and women or across states. Fenelon (2013) reported on State variation and divergence over time in U.S. mortality through 2005, finding that over the past half century, areas with especially high mortality have become increasingly concentrated and centered largely in the Central South. Understanding more recent mortality differentials across states within the U.S. may yield clues about why our standing in terms of life expectancy is relatively low worldwide, despite the highest level of spending on health care (Crimmins, Preston, & Cohen, 2010).

This proposal requests an administrative supplement to the Michigan Center on the Demography of Aging (MiCDA) in order to produce an online, interactive data visualization of age-standardized death rates through 2015. The supplement will be carried out by the P30 Coordinating Center in collaboration with the Population Reference Bureau. An overarching aim of the MiCDA-run Coordinating Center is to inform the public about behavioral and social research supported by the National Institute on Aging, particularly topics within the purview of the NIA Centers on the Demography and Economics of Aging.

The administrative supplement would provide resources for the Coordinating Center to: ? develop an online, interactive data visualization tool to display state and regional trends in age-standardized mortality rates for ages 55+, by sex? supply the age-adjusted rates for download in Excel to allow users to conduct their own analyses? house the online tool on the Population Reference Bureau website (with a link from the ?all P30 centers? website agingcenters.org)